Spinach and champagne. Going back to the kitchens at the old Waldorf. Dancing on the kitchen tables, wearing the chef's headgear. Finally, a crash and being escorted out by the house detectives.

without you, dearest dearest I couldn't see or hear or feel or think - or live - I love you so and I'm never in all our lives going to let us be apart another night.

Nothing could have survived our life.

I believed I was a salamander, and it seems I am nothing but an impediment.

memories should be sharp when one has nothing else to live for

The night you gave me my birthday party... you were a young Lieutenant and I was a fragrant phantom, wasn't I? And it was a radiant night, a night of soft conspiracy and the trees agreed that it was all going to be for the best.

It seemed to Alabama that, reaching her goal, she would drive the devils that had driven her - that, in proving herself, she would achieve that peace which she imagined went only in surety of one’s self - that she would be able, through the medium of the dance, to command her emotions, to summon love or pity or happiness at will, having provided a channel through which they might flow. She drove herself mercilessly, and the summer dragged on.